


saints lived once too

by eleloh



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-02-15 19:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2241390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleloh/pseuds/eleloh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are only a dozen or so surviving photographs of Steven Grant Rogers.</p><p> </p><p> a series of non-sequential shorts about Captain America memorabilia, photography, love, and eleven Iron Man posters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. your magic tears cannot save us now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are only a dozen or so surviving photographs of Steven Grant Rogers

There are only a dozen or so surviving photographs of Steven Grant Rogers.

Authorities on the American icon suggest there were only ever a dozen to begin with while others believe that there’s a wealth of documents hidden somewhere in the city, just waiting to rock the world. For a few decades scholars, sitting at the edge of their tenured seats, waited for a treasure trove to be unearthed in some grandmother’s attic. There were many, many crossed fingers. An authentic picture of Steve, especially not as Captain America but as _Steve Rogers_ , is worth thousands, tens of thousands!, and is symbolically _priceless_ for the amount of light it could shed on the propaganda idol turned actual war hero: Captain America.

What has been found and authenticated sits in a display case at the permanent Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian. Among the replicas, costumes, gear, weapons, films, and testimonies, sits the scattered photographic evidence of Steve’s life.

A couple of these are of Steve as a child. He is held as a squirming newborn in his father’s meaty arms, in another he is wrapped in his mother’s, sleeping soundly while she smiles at the camera. She looks so _happy_ it leaves Steve breathless every time.

A few are formal portraits taken in his best church clothes, documenting the change from toddler to gawky young man. There is one candid of his youth on display, two more in the archives. There are exactly two strips from photo booths, both missing pictures. There is also the famous photo taken of Steve in basic. The original is among Peggy Carter’s few keepsakes and copies of it are sold at the museum store as postcards, two dollars each and they don't even come with stamps.

Most are taken after the serum, when Steve Rogers blurs into the Captain America persona. A few serious, stiff photographs with a clinical edge, as well as an official Captain America portrait, embarrassing costume and all. There are a few backstage candids taken in varying states with showgirls in the background and some newspaper articles with his face on the front page.

There's even a photo of the Howling Commandos together, bruised and dirty and taking a smoke. Not displayed is a disintegrating picture of Steve and Bucky standing close and talking, completely unaware of the camera. Both taken at an undisclosed date at an undisclosed place.

These photos were collected, archived, preserved, and are esteemed as important artifacts of American history, essential in understanding the mysterious and inspirational life of America’s greatest soldier and face of the second world war.

The Smithsonian is hesitant but eager to please when Steve sends in his appeal for his personal photos back. They asked only to make copies to keep on display and on permanent record. A week later he receives what is left of his life in a complicated padded envelope, inside a stack of individually wrapped black and white photographs.

Steve laid them on his kitchen table, fifteen photos of varying sizes. He wants a drink, something hard, something desperate, something to busy his hands. He frames each photo instead and hangs them up in his Brooklyn apartment (its not the one he was born in, grew up in, almost died a few times in, but it’s nearby and he sort of recognizes the landscape. It is falling apart though and _that_ feels very much like being home) and he stares at all of the empty space on his walls and gets thinking.

Steve vividly remembers one photograph being taken, of himself and Bucky as shirtless teens in a brutal Brooklyn summer. Bucky gave an immediate charming grin while Steve was caught between a word, a cough, and a goofy smile. It was terrible and Bucky brought it up _all the time_ and Steve kept it for years. Before the war he kept a whole tin box filled to the brim with photographs like that, some bought, some that he traded others for, many that were taken by his mother, before she had to sell the camera, and a few he even took himself that weren’t half bad.  

There may have only been the fifteen on record but there are many, many pictures, he knows, that have escaped the analyzing eyes and sticky fingers of historians. So many that were never referenced in the academic papers on the _Captain America Effect_ or in the many re-tellings of his life story from birth in Brooklyn to his death in the Artic, pictures that were never scrutinized under a socio-political lens. And Steve is grateful that at least _some_ parts of his life are still mysteries, that they’re his and only his. _One_ part of him that doesn’t belong to the public consciousness.

He’d leave the distinguished authorities on Captain America to ponder the aspects of his life and set to work tracking down the treasure trove they’d been searching decades for.

A few of these photos Steve hounds down easily, the internet being a wonderful place when you can manipulate the variables enough. He has to admit though; it’s also easier when you know exactly what you’re looking for.

Steve spends two whole days flipping through an archive of similar well-worn and falling apart photographs before he finds the one he was looking for, his golden needle in the haystack. Another he finds in a digital library and tracks it down to a private collection in southern France, of all places. There are several he buys anonymously during an auction for an obscene amount of money that he’s frankly ashamed about and never discusses. (It’s just under half a million dollars.)

He spends every moment he has tearing apart antique stores in the day and scrolling through backlogs during the night, bidding on boxes upon boxes of vintage photographs at two a.m. and obsessively refreshing the page until time runs out.

Sometimes he finds nothing, sometimes he finds wedding photos of girls he went to school with, portraits of boys that were in basic with him, of men that were in Bucky’s unit, once he found a photograph of his mother at a dance and found himself suddenly breathless at the force of his painlongingregret and surrounded by piles and piles of so many long-lived and happy lives.

It hurts.

He aches.

He opens another box.

This goes on for longer than he would’ve liked to admit.

He stops after the invasion, promptly moves to DC, and packs up all of his pictures and then never unpacks them.

His walls are bare and just short of being creme colored and he says he likes it that way. More modern, minimalist even. One day he comes home to weird off-white on off-white painting hanging on his wall and a sticky note that read, _from russia with love_. He says he likes that way too (and kinda does, its--striking). Stark sends him a limited edition red, white, and blue Iron Man print in an intricate, possibly actual gold, frame. It’s signed with a flourish, _your friend_.

Steve puts it in his bedroom but starts the rumor that he threw it away. He gets seventeen messages and a new identical poster every few days for almost a month.

Bruce Banner sends him a bonsai tree with very detailed instructions. It’s…not dead, exactly.

He fills his shelves with books he’s been told to read, his record player with music he missed, his television with films from several countries. Every morning he gets out of bed and runs around the city as the sun rises blood red behind him. He would think it’s beautiful if he ever stopped to look.

\--

He doesn’t expect it to follow him (stupid) even when Steve continues to chase after the past (stupider).

\--

He doesn’t expect another photograph in the wrinkled hands of Peggy Carter. He hears her say that it was in his things. “I don’t know why,” she says. “Why I kept it. I never had a real reason. I just did. I’m glad I did.”

She takes his hand in hers when Steve says nothing, when he can’t say anything for fear of shaking apart next to her hospital bed and feels like they just did this, didn’t they just do this? Her hand in his, Steve is sitting in a bar that is crumbling around them there is a war on but it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter at all, seventy years ago but he feels the whiskey burning in his throat still, the wind cutting his cheek, the train shaking under his feet.

“I’m glad too.” His voice cracks.

He frames it that night, tucking it tenderly between glass and the thin cardboard back and hesitantly hangs it up. It’s the first thing, the first thing that’s really _his_ , that he has. His palms itch and his mouth twitches and then Steve’s hammering in two dozen nails to the wall and digging through the boxes in his closet.

When he’s done, the new addition looks at home with its family, the pictures he’s lost and found among the ones he was given, but it doesn’t sit right with him. It stands out too much, he thinks, and his eyes flick to it every time he looks over. Even when he takes them down and rearranges multiple times, he just can’t find a spot that seems…right. 

So Steve leaves it on his bedside table and fidgets and sweats a bit and wonders if that sort of thing is appropriate before moving it to his dresser then to a shelf in the foyer before finally placing it back on the wall.

He tries to go bed. He stares at the ceiling fan turning slowly ‘round and ‘round and ‘round for one hundred and two cycles before quietly slipping out for a run which turns into a full sprint that Steve tells himself is the reason why his chest is aching and it hurts to breathe when he finally stops. After he catches his breath, he does the whole run over again. And then one more time.

When Steve finally returns the sun is starting to peak through the blinds. His shirt is cold with sweat as he pauses in front of the photograph Peggy gave him. He doesn’t feel so weird anymore as he grabs the picture roughly off the wall and places it again on his bedside table, tilting it just so. He and the picture face each other as he strips and gets back into bed. Steve takes in a shaking breath, swallows it down. 

Bucky Barnes stands in his undershirt in their old Brooklyn apartment, which is absolutely falling apart around them. The morning sun is coming through the window and Bucky has a cup of coffee in his hand. His eyes are closed and his hair is a mess. He has just woken up. He is smiling. He is smiling at something Steve said so many years ago in a moment that exists forever in that picture frame. It takes thirty-two revolutions of the ceiling fan for him to fall asleep but when he does, it is the deepest sleep he’s ever had.

He’s found so many of these, so many moments that feel like they never happened, that were hallucinations within a fever dream. How could Steve have stood in that kitchen in 1939? Or on that street corner in 1931? How could Bucky, how could _he_ , have ever looked so young? Those days were lost to him. Bucky was lost to him. Steve could find all of the photographs there were of his life before he hit the water but it wouldn’t matter. It just wouldn’t matter. He was chasing ghosts of the real thing and he knew it. 

\--

There are many, many surviving pictures of the mysterious life that made up Steven Grant Rogers. The public has only seen a small fraction. Most have been lost, damaged, sold to unsuspecting buyers, or forgotten under years of dust. Most are not what you would expect. Most are not even of him. And none of them were meant to be artifacts.

But in searching for them, in framing them, in keeping them on his wall and on his bedside table, Steve is reminded of the one photograph he knows neither he nor any aging historian devoted to cataloging his life will ever find. It hurts to think about so he doesn’t. It’s not the picture he minds losing. It was never meant for him. It’s the man he gave it to that he misses, a man frozen in time in a dozen looked over and forgotten photographs in private archives and antique stores and auctions that now hang on a wall and on a bedside table in a small apartment in Washington DC, a man that fell from a train with a priceless picture of Steve Rogers tucked into his uniform jacket, right above his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dont know when the next part will come. I have four chapters semi written but this 2k part took me a weirdly long long time maybe soon maybe never I am terrible


	2. nothin like you and i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a morning after a morning after a morning and each one begins with the sun coming though the blinds on his window as Bucky unclenches his fists.

 

There are good days, better days, days where Bucky lies awake for fear of falling asleep, for fear of what he remembers, what he knows. There is a morning after a morning after a morning and each one begins with the sun coming though the blinds on his window as Bucky unclenches his fists.

Steve says that he sleeps like he’s boxing in his dreams, _“like you’re gonna to wake up swingin’ Buck.”_ Steve asks him about his dreams sometimes, says dreams can mean stuff. Like memories sometimes. Apparently the people who would know that sort of thing say that the way a person goes to sleep can affect that sorta thing. Steve has a whole book about it. It’s binding remains uncracked. Bucky does doesn’t wonder what it means that he sleeps with his fists tucked in, ready to knock out the poor sucker that comes too close.

Steve is the only poor sucker that comes too close, is often too close, forever pushing at his boundaries, redrawing lines, flesh hand on his metal hand, flesh hand on his flesh hand, talking quiet about things Bucky doesdoesn’t? remember but wants to when he hears the way Steve talks so tender about it. Flesh hand on his flesh hand, goosebumps shivering down his spine as Steve stares out of the window and does not say, do you remember when. Flesh hand on his flesh hand, their fingers sliding together. He knows acutely the last time someone touched his hand but it was not like this, he did not curl their fingers together like he does now, it did not make him shiver so pleasantly. There was nothing pleasant about it.

Bucky does not remember many pleasant things, does not remember many things at all, mostly it’s boom shatter crackle scream and a thousand bees in his brain, but he does remember the way fat tufts of snow fell among tall trees for miles and miles until he was surrounded by a white woolen fog. Someone singing a quiet undecipherable song. He can hear the sound of cicadas and the smell of, of something, something cooking thick and rich and creamy that makes his mouth water and sometimes sometimes he can feel ghost fingers in his hair on his cheek on the back of his neck trailing down to lie flat between his shoulder blades. He’s hot in the face but he shivers all over.

Bucky does not ask Steve do you remember when, instead he too stares out of the window and slides their fingers together as they linger in a place very far away from now.  

There is a wall of photographs where Steve lives. There is a whole wall of photographs and they were there before he was. He passed them fifteen times on the fifteen times he almost left and then fifteen more times when traced his steps back to his room, unable to even turn the knob under the scrutinizing stare of their frozen faces with dark eyes that followed him around, “ _they’re just photos, Buck, just paper.”_ He knows faces by reputation only, knows the face of Steve’s mother but can’t recall her casserole, knows the name of the street their first apartment was on but can’t see the peeling walls, knows Steve in his many incarnations but. But.

That first day, when they still had black eyes and broken noses, were covered in bruises and blood that was mostly not their own, Steve offered to take them down when Bucky lingered.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied, eyes still flicking around the pictures, “I don’t know who they are.” But he lingered still, mouth pulling up into a grimace before settling in a sure line, and pointed to one. “That’s me.” Pointed to another. “And that’s you.” Bucky stood staring, chewing in the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood and decidedly not looking at Steve. He finally shrugged and a rib hurt but isn’t broken and Steve stares and says yeah and okay and do you want to sleep in the guest room or?

Bucky later gets a full tour of all of those faces and names and places but not even the word mother stirs anything in him. He learns instead the faces Steve makes in relation to words and phrases, silently watching Steve gesture and point and stumble unsure and constantly glance at him for cues.

In Steve’s apartment there is a wall filled with photographs of people Bucky can’t place and a closet full of boxes full of pictures with unknown names and places and faces. Steve never delivered any monologues or stories about those, never gave him a tour of memories he did not have, ignored the existence of the closet entirely. But Steve doesn’t say a word when Bucky drags out boxes, and explores them, and leaves the contents spilled all over the living room floor. He doesn’t do much but slurp his coffee, fidget, and make lunch. Bucky looks at them and doesn’t know them but Steve never does that face he tries not to do when Bucky doesn’t recognize these people.

In the middle of the night Bucky’ll slip into the hallway and silently slide out the box. And sometimes, when he’s sure that Steve is deep in sleep, he’ll stare at the wall full of photographs that Steve tracked down and chased and kept and treasured. He’ll try to unearth any recognition at all, something buried so deep that a hundred thousand surgeons couldn’t scrape it out of his brain. Bucky knows Steve, knows without knowing the face of the child smiling at the camera with missing front teeth. Sometimes, just sometimes, Bucky feels something just at the edge of his mind, words just at the tip of tongue, and he _almost_ knows, can just barely make out a blurry almost image an almost memory full of almost words that grow louder and full of static the more he focuses in on them. But then the moment passes, his head feels like its being crushed, pain sharp behind his eyes while he gasps for air. A hundred thousand surgeons did an impeccable job.

And sometimes afterward he’ll wake up Steve, _“C’mere, sit next to me,”_ listening while he breathes deeply, snoring softly into the night. Steve doesn’t sleep with his hands clenched but his shield is always nearby and his body is always aware of it, even in sleep. Bucky wonders what Steve dreams of. Flesh hand on his metal hand, he doesn’t really care.

Every morning is preceded by a morning and is followed by yet another morning. It makes no difference if it is a good or bad day or if he has terrible nightmares and wakes up screaming or if he doesn’t speak for days, if he stares into the distance and only sees horror, only feels the cold bite of wind on his cheek. Another morning follows. Steve will touch their fingers together and offer him a cup of coffee and the sun will come up. Sitting like this, on the balcony “ _I have a great view, you’ll love it_ ,”, he can nearly feel all of the other mornings spent exactly like this, sure that they have done this before, even if he can’t place when or where or how old they were, or what they were wearing or thinking or doing, what their worries were or how the war loomed over them or how much time they had left. Something about Steve, quiet and contemplative, is more real than any faded memory he didn’t have, better, here.

The mornings that Steve is not there to wrap a blanket over him or to whistle at the birds are the worst, even if nothing happens, even if he makes it the entire day without incident, without a friend of a friend ‘dropping by’. Rationally, Bucky knows that he’s spent years without Steve, but, but, “ _you’re my friend_ ,” and “ _I’m not giving up on you_ ,” and “ _c’mere_ ,”. There is no going back, never again. “ _Oh Buck.”_ No, no going back, and the awareness of everything he hasn’t had for so so long, makes every small loss a terror.

The days Steve has to leave are the worst, where Bucky only paces and prunes the bonsai tree and eats nothing but snack foods, where he waters the peace lily and feeds the strays by the trash and looks at endless faces in photographs, when he scrutinizes everything and checks the perimeter hourly, and sleeps in Steve’s bed because this horrible, horrible.

A morning, a morning, a morning. He unclenches his fists from Steve’s sheets. The ceiling fan makes the softest noise as it spins above him. He turns over.

There is a wall full of photos of people and places Steve once knew, a closet full of boxes full of photos that were strangers, unknowns, and one picture frame that faced the bed in Steve’s room. Bucky breathed softly, still in a reverie from a dreamless, peaceful sleep, as he stared at himself in black white.

It’s of him, his face, his old new face young in a way he doesn’t remember having experienced. A body like, a body like. Two arms that are the same, a body free of the map of scars that outline the missing years of his life. A smile. The sunlight on his skin. Bucky looks at it and—

_The coffee was on its third boil, but it was warm in his hands_

Steve kept it on a table next to the bed.

What does that mean?

For a moment Bucky is furious and he doesn’t know why, tucking the picture into his chest possessively, carrying it around with him all day while he watered the plants, pruned the bonsai tree, paced, trimmed his growing beard, fed the stray cat in the alley, took the trash out, brushed his teeth, and walked around checking every door and window again and again. It was it was, the word that was told to him that was new and exciting and cruel, it was selfish, Steve was being _selfish_ with the things he gave and didn’t give, explained and didn’t explain, why a wall of pictures and why a closet full of photos in boxes and why one hidden away in Steve’s own room, away from where Bucky could see it! Where only Steve could see it, why when Bucky wanted to see it all. Why bother telling stories he didn’t remember, why their fingers interlaced, why, why.

What did Steve mean by that?

Bucky didn’t return the picture to the table when he slept again in Steve’s bed, instead keeping it tucked against him as he settled into the side of the bed Steve used. Surrounded by the sheer amount of stuff in Steve’s room, the art prints, the books, a strange painting hung in the corner, intricate objects with lettering in a language he didn’t know, _“I dunno, it’s kind’ve nice to have….things. I know, it’s dumb,”_ and between smell and touch and sight, it was almost like Steve was there, hovering about. Bucky’s own room was mostly dirty clothing and seven identical prints of a robot and brick from a Hydra facility he blew up. _It is nice to have things,_ he thought while keeping the picture pressed to his chest, _it wasn’t dumb at all_.

The next morning he laid on his back with the photo standing up on his stomach and stared at it for a long, long time, thinking things, like rain on the window glass and the chill of a draft along his backside, a whistling kettle, the small red light of a cigarette between dirty bloody fingers, fingers in his hair, pulling gently. Afterward, Bucky gingerly placed the photograph of himself back on the nightstand and walked on bare feet to Steve’s wall of photographs. Selecting one, he took apart a picture frame that hung on the wall and stuck the wrinkled photo into the pocket on his shirt, thinks, yes _yes_ , that’s much better. And goes about his day.

When Steve comes back, it’s days later, it’s with blood in his hair, but no bruises on his body. He doesn’t notice the missing picture on the wall or the fact that one of the strays that lived by the trashcans is now sleeping on their couch. He sees Bucky wrapped in a thin blanket, reading a paperback in the dwindling sunlight and steps out on the balcony to join him. Bucky hands him a cup of cooling coffee. They sit in silence, enough time elapsing for Steve to take a deep breath that signaled a story, a story that decidedly did not start with do you remember when. Before he can start, Bucky speaks.

“Did I love you?” He asks, voice scratchy from days of quiet, still and staring at the words on the yellowed page. With his metal hand he checks for the photo, making sure, drawing strength.

Steve is silent, mouth attempting words, and eyes searching.

“Did you love me?” Bucky closed the book, setting it on his lap, and turning to look Steve in the eyes. A long moment passed. “Do you still?” he whispers. His metal hand coming again to his shirt pocket, lingering. They stared at each other, both searching for cues, for signals, for facial gestures to guide them safely into a place that doesn’t hurt. Eventually Steve reached for Bucky’s hand, thumb caressing his knuckles before his knelt closer, kissing the tip of Bucky’s flesh fingers, his knuckles, his palm, his wrist. Bucky let out a shaking breath. The sun set red and the sky grew dark and before Bucky went to sleep that night in Steve’s bed, he placed the picture of a scrawny young man who stared at the camera with defiant eyes and a hesitant smile next to the framed picture on the night stand, where they both lived in their frozen moments, young and happy, and sure that another day would be followed by another, days that promised both a bit more pain and a bit more bliss.

They faced each other in bed, saying little, smiling a lot.

“I don’t remember you,” Bucky whispered. “Not really. I know you but I don’t remember you. I might never—“

“I don’t care,” Steve rushed to say, voice so sure, vehement. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But it does.” Bucky grimaced, sighing. “It does.”

Steve stared, “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

A morning followed, a bird sang, and instead of unclenching his fists, Bucky rolled out of Steve’s grasp and laid there, watching the light come through the blinds and Steve softly snored, better than a dream, better than a memory, here and real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from The Perisher's song of the same name. Next chapter; golden apples and then there's you. (assume this will take just as long for just as short a chapter, college is v hard guys)


	3. our bones filled with dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in time, Bucky Barnes comes back to you.
> 
> This chapter is in 2nd person but will be the only chapter from that point of view.

You watch him go.

Somewhere in time you are five-four and only just short of breath instead of gasping as you climb the six flights to your shared tenement apartment. Your clothes have all the right patches and your lost-and-found coat is the warmest thing you’ve owned in years. You came home that night with a whole ham. Inside, Bucky is already home from the job that kept him in work throughout the winter and the apartment is warmer than it is outside. You even have a little tree in the corner. It’s so little and more than you’ve had in years, it’s Christmas, it’s a miracle.

You close your eyes now, unable to, unable.

He’ll come back, you know. Even as you know that he will not turn back or even pause before disappearing into the tree line. Just as you know that he has left you stranded with a concussion and a fractured ribcage and three broken fingers, you know. Just as you know that he fished you out of the river he put you in. Just as you know that he shot to miss when he aimed at you.  As he walks off into the lifting morning mist and does not pause and does not look over his shoulder, you know, with a swelling heart, that he will come back to you.

Somewhere in time, Bucky Barnes lifts you up and swings you around and you both laugh so hard that tears prick at your eyes.

Yes, you think. Bucky Barnes will come back to you.

It will be Christmas and it will be a miracle.

When Sam finds you two hours later, still miles from the nearest town and even more from the burning building at your back, you lie and say that you didn’t cry this time.

Then you make him promise not to tell anyone you cried.

\--

You watch him go. It is the eve before Bucky leaves for war and you watch him go, just as you did when he boarded the train months ago for basic training. Only this time he won’t be coming back after a few weeks. It is the same and not the same; you still spent the day trying to enlist, lying through your teeth about your abilities. Bucky still spent the day looking for a date for you, coincidentally also lying though his teeth about your abilities. Only this time he succeeded; only this time you succeeded. He is gone before he could possibly change your mind, like he’s been trying to for months, like he’s been trying to ever since his draft notice came in. He is gone before you can possibly make him understand, unsure if you yourself even understand, unsure if you even have the words to, unsure if he would even listen at this point. You are both leaving. You are both already gone. You are both dead, in ways you did not think could happen to people, real flesh and blood people. You were dead the moment you grit your teeth and tell them you can take it. Bucky was dead the moment he looked through the scope and twitched his finger, dead when he was dragged by two Hydra agents into the room no one came back from, gritting his teeth and telling them he could take whatever they could dish, dead in ways you didn’t expect, never thought could happen to a real flesh and blood person. Both of you replaced with someone strange and new and unexpected. Deader still. Gone. A train whistles. You watch him go.

\---

_Somewhere in Austria, you and the other commandos are stopped behind a rocky outcrop. Everyone’s hands are busy with a gun or a cigarette, in most cases both. One cigarette followed by another cigarette followed by another. Everyone but you. Your hands are busy searching the horizon with a pair of binoculars. It’s snowing slowly, big fat tufts among the endless trees. Farther away, in the foliage, it’s near impossible to see anything. But you keep looking. Dum Dum starts humming._

\---

You watch him go. You are eight and your nose is still bleeding a little from the beating that the Hanson brothers gave you just an hour ago. You know why, because you have a big mouth and don’t run away when given the chance. They insult you and then you push and then they punch and then you lunge and it all goes to pits from there. There isn’t a kid in a seven-block radius that you haven’t scrambled with except for James Barnes, only he’s new so maybe it’s because there hasn’t been enough time for the two of you to get acquainted with each other’s fists.  But maybe you would’ve already if those Lithuanians from two blocks down hadn’t been messing with him one day and you threw rocks at them from the flights of stairs running along your apartment building. And maybe you would’ve already if you hadn’t chased Bobby Reilly for a block with a big stick for splashing one of James’s sisters with muddy water. But as it stands you threw rocks from the stairs and you swung a big stick for a block and James Barnes tackled the middle Hanson to the ground and kicked the eldest in the groin and let the youngest one get away.

You think that James is a year behind you at school but he’s bigger than you already. When he walks you home, he gives you a handkerchief that ends up soaked in blood and he tells you to keep it, please. You’ve never spoken a word to him before but now he tells you that he’s been trying to keep an eye out and an ear out and a hand out and that he was just coming back from getting that newspaper that is now scattered all over the alley that Tate and Happy Hanson pulled you into. He tells you all kinds of things, the new game he made up, the time someone opened the hydrant and police showed up, his new sister now five months old, the wound on his elbow that was scabbing over but he keeps picking at it. By the time he ran out of things to say the handkerchief was soaked in blood but the bleeding itself stopped. James halts in front of your building. What floor are you on, he asks. Fifth, you say, tasting the copper in your mouth. That’s a lot of stairs, he says, peering up at them and then at you, digging his shoe into the weeds growing in the sidewalk, you gonna be okay? I’m fine, you say as gruffly as possible; after all you have a reputation to uphold despite your asthma attacks and frequent fevers so you start up the stairs without another word. At the top of the steps you glance back to see James still standing there. He starts, red and obviously embarrassed, before he puts his hands into his pockets and quickly starts walking. You watch him go. You have no friends. It’s a side of effect of terrorizing the streets with zero discrimination. You lick the blood off your lip and grip the bloody handkerchief and call out. At the top of the stairs, he tells you that his friends call him Bucky.

\---

_Dum Dum starts humming and the chill of the wind has numbed your fingers. You’ve been sitting in the same spot for two hours, fingers stiff inside their gloves. When enough time has passed for Dernier to open another pack of cigarettes, with a huff you lower the binoculars and begin pacing the short amount of space that has been providing you and your team with cover for the past few hours. Dernier lights another and says something you don’t understand under his breath. Gabe laughs as he beings to clean his gun and you go back to searching the space just outside of your sight, waiting, waiting._

\--

You watch him walk away. It’s 1939 and Germany has invaded Poland but Bucky Barnes has you pushed against the brick of an alleyway and his mouth is hot on yours and his hands are even hotter on your body, where they untuck your undershirt and slip up your chest to touch your nipples. It’s almost enough to make you forget the front page of the paper in your back pocket.

You suppose that’s the point.

You suppose that you should have seen this coming, if x then y, if Steve does this then Bucky will do that, the only consistent truth you’ve ever known. If you’re restless for too long, jittery and irritable, then Bucky will find the few dimes to take you out to the new film showing down the street, with that actor you like, you know the one. If you disappear from said movie a few minutes too long then Bucky will interrupt the sudden fist fight you’ve found yourself in. If you start coughing then Bucky will drape the extra sheets across the windowpanes to keep the draft out and maybe boil water on the stove to clear your lungs. If you start ranting about fascism and civil duty and all those other words you heard being yelled out at the rally you stumbled into last week and if you start making plans to go to Canada to join the RFA and if you start to talk about nothing else but the headline of the newspaper in your back pocket then Bucky is going to look both ways before yanking you into the alley. He will push you against the wall and curse at you and say, what the fuck are you thinking Steve and we’re not going to Canada, Steve, and are you crazy, only someone crazy would want to go to war, you could die! Or worse, kill someone! While he’s yelling at you, if you open your mouth to argue back to say something mean and rude, he’ll kiss you, both hands grabbing your face. You’re not going to Canada, Steve, he’ll whisper, holding you close. If you say, but Bucky, then he’ll say, but nothing, and will slip his tongue into your mouth so it’s difficult to remember why you were arguing in the first place.

 You suppose that’s the point.

When you're both panting, Bucky will back off, knock his forehead against yours to stare at you. Maybe he’ll take the moment to dislodge your hand from his shirt to kiss at your fingertips, your palm, your wrist. But he’ll definitely take a moment to really stare you down. If Steve does this then Bucky will do that. You wipe the saliva off your mouth and regain your breath. “Bucky, we can’t just—do nothing! People are dying! And I—“ Bucky groans loudly and runs his hands down his face as though he can physically wipe away the irritation.

“No,” he says. As though that’s it, as though that’s the end. You’ve had this conversation before and you know how it goes, know it like you know your own fists, your own breathing, like you knows the sound of Bucky’s footsteps, his whistle, his smell, and his political views. If Steve does this then Bucky will do that, if x then y. You gather yourself up, even as Bucky scoffs and starts walking off, every muscle in his body twisted tight in anger and frustration. You yell after him anyway, even when you know that he’s not going pause or turn around or even give any indication he’s heard you. “It’s our moral duty, Buck! We can’t sit back and just watch as innocent people die! I’m not going to just stand by. Buck! BUCKY!”

When he rounds the corner, you keep yelling, running to the end of the alley to continue yelling at his back. Eventually a small crowd has gathered and you stop once you need to gasp for air. Bucky is blocks away. You watch him keep on walking. The crowd titters and disperses. You linger, lifting a hand to your lips, thinking that just moments ago the two of you were kissing and then mentally kicking yourself for doing what you always do. You huff and stomp back to the apartment, where you wait for Bucky to quietly come home and crawl into your bed. If you grumble and turn away he might kiss all the way down your spine and fervently blow you while you writhe on your back, and later will murmur, “I’m sorry,” against your lips. But if you turn into his arms and kiss his temple, his brow, his eyes, and say “I’m sorry,” first, he might collapse in your arms and sob loud and gross as he tries to explain how he doesn’t want to bury you, couldn’t bare to and will fall asleep exhausted with your hands in his hair. Now, you wait, wondering which will happen, if x then y. You wait, the door creaks, and Bucky comes back.

\----

_You’re waiting, waiting, waiting, and the horizon still offers no reprieve to the knot in your stomach. You consult the map that you’ve memorized and the embattlements listed and the handwritten, coded, recon report of the small Hydra regiment that has taken hold of an advantageous site on a what you would call an enormous mountain but that you’ve been assured is only a rather small one. The site is advantageous because any approaching team can easily be spotted from the elevation. Unless of course, that team consists of only one person, who moves near invisible through the snow and rocks and will quickly take out each posted guard without a sound. Someone who is very talented with a garroting wire and sniper rifle. You’re sure that something must have gone wrong, that the mission should not have taken this long, that he was found, that there was an avalanche, and you’re about to knock the table over in your haste to grab your helmet and shield and run out when Morita says, “Captain, take a look,” and hands you the binoculars._

\---

For the first time in so long you do not have to watch him walk away from you.

This time Bucky _“Don’t call me that”_ Barnes watches you pace through a small rectangular window that breaks up the 12 foot square of one foot thick reinforced steel that has closed off one half of the Hydra facility from the other. You pace, red hot all over while his eyes track your movement. Sam is out front, likely still taking out every agent that escaped the path of Captain America and spewed forth like a rat from the sewer as the building was slowly gutted.

You weren’t expecting him. You’ve only managed come across him less than a handful of times in the past few months, every time, excusing one accident, being a race against the clock as you chased him across Europe and Asia. Your sources, fuck your sources you think, had intel that Minsk was his next destination and that you were already too late to meet him here. But you were in China anyway, following his footsteps, and Natasha broke two months of silence to tell you to take care of this first. This being, of course, an experimental weapons facility that appeared to be nothing more than an electronics factory. And it was an electronics factory, to a certain extent. Under the hundreds of workstations, your intel told you that Hydra was busy making enough artillery to outfit two armies. You didn’t expect him here.

Which is why, when a gun shot takes out a Hydra agent that struggled to his knees to aim at your back, you call out, “Good of you to stop by, Nat. What do you think this does?” And turn, expecting to see Natasha coming to follow her lead to the very end, only to freeze when Bucky is standing there instead.

He’d almost look exactly like the Winter Solider if it weren’t for the stubble taking over his face and the way his hair was tied back. The two of you watch each other and in that moment you wildly think that your heart palpitations have come back and worried that you didn’t have your medication on you. In a flash you come back.

“Bu—“

Bucky lifts one finger to his lips and tenses.

 You hear it now too, at least three sets of footsteps coming your way. He moves flat against the wall and before you can even cuss at him, steps right into the hallway, firing three quick shots. “Fuck,” you mutter and spin into the hallway yourself, shield blocking the foray of bullets aimed at Bucky from the surviving soldiers. Bucky drops from the safety of your cover, sending two bullets into the foreheads of the agents. They drop as he stands.

Without a word he discards his own pistol and picks up one of guard’s, checking the bullets before searching for more magazines within the guard’s uniform. You take the moment to catch your breath.

Bucky must have entered from another opening in the facility’s defenses. One you didn’t know about. Over the last few months, you’ve gathered enough intel to safely assume Bucky was acting on his own, of his own free will, and that he was directing that free will to destroy as many underground Hydra facilities as he could. Many of which had completely slipped under Shield’s radar, which sounds like decades of work on Peirce’s part to make them disappear. From what Steve could tell based on the wreckage, he privately assumed that each was a facility that meant something to Bucky. Given the past seventy years, it meant nothing good. He’s only said as such to Sam, who quieted before saying, “Revenge, huh? Get everyone who got you? There’s bound to be a lot of people in between him and them.”

You tightened your grip on the steering wheel. “I can’t say I feel sorry for any of them.”

“Me neither. I’m just saying. Revenge isn’t going to make anyone sleep better at night. Or come to terms with that something terrible that happened. It just isn’t, Steve. It’s just gonna keep adding up. All that death, man. Even if that’s what he wants, he’s gonna have to carry all that death with him. You too,” Sam turned to you, staring pointedly before turning back. “And so will I.”

You think about that now. About the maybe one hundred hydra agents waiting before you, in depths of the facility that you haven’t explored yet. About how you should immediately alert Sam to the situation. Bucky stands, a semi-autonatic slung on his shoulder and two pistols in each hand, facing you silently. You swallow then nod. He throws you a gun, which you strap to your leg, checking the safety; he makes a disapproving sound but says nothing.

“I came from the west side of the factory. The rest of this floor is clear, except for the agents likely pouring through the stairwell in the south corridor. That leads both up and down with another exit point to my back. The elevator is permanently out of order now. I think the main factory is further down, likely where they assemble the larger goods and package them.” You make for the southern stairwell; Bucky follows, silent, at your shoulder. It feels like old times.

Between the both of you, the hydra agents don’t stand a chance and you clear the next floor in half the time you estimated for. You finally come to the final floor and you clear the first few entryways with little resistance. It is not the factory setting you assumed. A few high ceilinged rooms with blood on the floor, some with unspecific machinery, more empty. It fact there is nothing to suggest that anything is assembled here. “I don’t under stand,” you say, pausing to investigate a side room. “Where are the weapons? I thought this place would be packed with machinery.”

Bucky continues ahead of you and speaks for the first time. “They don’t make weapons here. Not the gun and bombs kind anyway.”

Oh. _Oh_.

“Bucky,” you say, struggling to keep the emotion out of your voice. You’ve read his file. You know just about as much as you can know. But you assume there’s so much more. You take the worst thing that you think humanity is capable of and then multiply it by the worst things you know humanity has done.

He turns from you, shoulders stiff as he starts to walk away. “Don’t call me that.”

You call after him. “Okay. What do you want me to—“

And that’s when the building starts shaking. At first you think it’s just footsteps, but what you thought was just an open entrance shuts from above, weight of several tons sending reverberations through the floor and walls. The vibrations are matches by the pounding of feet coming your way, what sounds like two teams of agents.

You panic, running to the door. There is a small rectangular window. Like an observation window, and you feel a chill running down your body when you think about what Bucky said just moments ago and you’re private guess on his motives for the past few months. If, if Bucky had been kept at this facility, then containment of the Winter Soldier was top priority. This was meant to keep him in.  “Bucky!”

You see him thrash through glass window and the dull thuds of what you assume is his cybernetic arm making wild hits. He looks at you, eyes searching. “Bucky, Bucky. What do I do?!” There’s no control panel anywhere, nothing for you to try codes or to smash to pieces. You hit the door with the full force of your shield, making little progress. Through the window you see Bucky turn away from you. You hear the pings of bullets hitting the wall. There is a team of Hydra agents, running toward him.

“Bucky!” You slam on the door, “Hey! Fuck! Fuck you wall!” Bucky engages the agents, moving quick and deadly and you groan in frustration, continuing to attack the wall of reinforced steel that separates you from Bucky until Hydra agents of your very own start shooting at you. They’re good shots, one hitting just left of your ear.

 You breathe. Another gunshot whizzes through the air and you make for the shield, using it to protect your body as you reach for the gun Bucky made you take. You don’t like guns. You don’t like using them. It feels like an answer you never wanted in your palm.

But there’s a reinforced steel door between you and Bucky and you’re pissed and you’ve learned your impeccable aim from the best. You take fire as the barrage slowly dwindles and the bodies on the ground grow. When you run out of bullets, you send yourself into the foray and don’t come out until your knuckles are bloody and your body is bruised.

This wasn’t what you expected. You haven’t, you haven’t even.

When the stream of agents finally stops you take only a second to breathe before immediately turning your attention back to the door. Bucky is swarmed by hydra agents, taking one down only to face two more. “Bucky!” Frantic, you step back to throw your shield, but even vibranium at the velocity you throw it only makes a dent. You do it again and again, putting forth more aggression and frustration in every throw, making only a growing collection of sizable dents.

As you start to throw your whole body against the wall, the screams slowly fade in the other room. You stop, panting, your entire body aching. Through the window you see Bucky stand from where he was strangling an agent. “Bucky!” You bang against the wall, bellows in the otherwise quiet. “Bucky! Bucky, please,” you shout. Please, come here, please come back, I’ve only just found you again, you don’t say.

He slowly turns to you, moving toward you, and you renew your barrage against the door. It gives little, even against your full strength. You want to laugh, you want to cry. Bucky watches you through the window. Breathing hard, you pace around the room, feeling a red-hot fury spreading all across your body. You’ve always hated feeling useless. You pant, running at the door to throw one more full force punch into the steel before letting out a frustrated scream. “Bucky,” you cry. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you keep repeating, feeling hot tears spill over. You knock your head against the glass, smacking the door for good measure before giving up. You suck in a few shaky breaths, attempting in earnest to calm yourself. You hear a small thud on the other side and look up.

Bucky has mimicked you, closing his eyes as he rests his head against the glass. The tips of his fingers, five metal five flesh, are just visible. You place your hands where you think his are, one foot of reinforced steel keeping you from holding his hands.

“Sometimes I see you,” he says, voice like rusted nails. “Behind my eyes.” He lets out a long sigh as you struggle with a sob that’s been working its way from your chest and into your throat. You end up gasping, hot tears still streaming down your face. You want to laugh, you want to cry. You didn’t expect him here.

\---

_A breath. You take a look. The snow is still falling in fat tufts but you can see just beyond the first few pine trees and you search the horizon for movement. Slowly, a figure comes into view, white and gray over-coat nearly blending in with the snow and sky. You lower the binoculars and just focus on breathing for a moment, closing your eyes with relief. When you’re able to, you hand the binoculars back to Morita with a murmured thanks and keep your eyes on the nearly poetic vision of Bucky Barnes, snow in his hair, gun on his back, as he emerges from a stark white horizon._

_You meet him in the middle, or maybe you sprint to meet him just as he clears the tree line, whatever the case you crush your lips to his. Tongue and teeth and his freezing hands on your neck, he laughs as you cover his icy ears. “God, it’s like you missed me or something.” You don’t say, yes, always, every moment you’re away. You don’t say, never, I knew you would come back to me, if x then y. If me then you. You kiss him somewhere in Austria._

\---

 

Somewhere in time Bucky Barnes says, “I knew I knew you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that took too long to write. At this rate I'll be updating the next chapter during the summer. I'm also on tumblr, if you're interested; setof3.tumblr.com


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